Boys wanting to dress as girls

[lorcan]

My 3 year old son constantly wants to dress in my clothes , use handbags and make-up etc. He says he wants to be a girl when he grows up.He does however enjoy playing with nornal boys toys and enjoys the rough and tumble sessions with his dad. He appears to be very imaginative and others say he is very advanced for his age.My issue is what to do about his dressing up issue and his dad is especialy upset about this as he thinks we are encouraging feminie behaviour. We have tried to stop letting him dress up etc but he has become very upset and withdrawn..Please give some advice if you have or are experiencing the same thing

My DS is 3 as well and loves pushing his sisters buggy around. My mum says all boys go through it... It is not bothering me at the moment but who knows whats to come

please don't try to stop him. The more you try to stop him, the more he will think it is a wrong thing to do, and it isn't wrong.

Just for his dad's information, the children who grow up cross dressing as adults are usually the children who were prevented from dressing up as children.

The fact that he becomes withdraw hints to me that he is already getting the message that this is 'wrong'.

Sorry to jump in with both feet, but I feel quite strongly that little boys should get as much right to express themselves as little girls. Nobody would stop a little girl playing football, would they?

I find that if you try to squash behaviour that makes you feel ucomfortable, then you only get more problems. OTOH, if you let the child get on with it then it eventually fades away. If you feel uneasy, then you can set limits - not something like 'only at home', but more along the lines of it being a reward or special treat, or soemthing that you do together.

My ds (5) loves pink, always chooses to be facepainted as a cat, one of his favourite fancy-dresses is a grey rabbit, and often carries a pale pink lippy in his pocket. I gave him the lippy because he desperately wanted one like my sister's (I don't wear lippy, on lipsalve), so this one is bright pink but goes on transparent. Like yours, he also enjoys boys' play and rough-and-tumble. Although he knows that only mummies can grow babies in their tummies, he often joins his little sister in playing that they are growing babies in their tummies - though he's totally uninterested in any other aspect of babydom. But when he was 3 he too was convinced that he would grow up to be a mummy and have babies.

It's a phase, it's healthy and important - especially if stopping it distresses him.

It gives no concern whatsoever over a boy's masculinity. Soon your ds will be in school, and exposed to all sorts of other influences.

Please let him continue. At the age of 3 it is an important part of his development. I had a friend whose three-year-old boy loved to dress up in a pink dress and lacy veil and be "Princess Robert" - it was a phase that lasted perhaps for a year or so then faded away - he is a very boyish boy!

I agree with Colditz and prettycandles.

DS is also very inmaginaitive and verbal, and loves role play and make believe of all kinds. he asked for a BabyBorn fpr Xmas, and is very attentive to her needs, but then rushes off to play with his light sabre.

IMO his Dad's making it an issue, and not being secure enough to encompass imaginative play of all kinds is far more likely to mess him up than enjoying and appreciating his imaginitive exhberance.

And even if this was the start of 'tendencies' that you DH is concerned about, trying to stop him will have NO effect whatsoever.

He is copying whatv he sees his favourite poerson in the world dpoing - what can be wrong with that, in a 3 year old?

lorcan, my ds1 loved to wear my shoes and play with my floaty scarfs when he was wee, he also loved my make-up and I've a picture of him somewhere covered in the stuff . I just let him get on with it, as I could remember my wee brother doing it when he was little.

My ds1 is now 20 years old, plays rugby, has a different girlfriend every month and as far as I'm aware no longer dresses up in womens clothes!!

ds2 also loves my shoes!

Agree totally with Coldiz and prettycandles, just let him get on with it!!

Another agreement with PrettyCandles and Colditz. My brother used to love dressing up as a girl, even at the age of 5, and is a 6" hunk, married with two kids - (he's also a great interior designer, so his feminine side obviously did ok too )
My 2 yr old dd likes Bob the Builder and football, and wants to be a boy some days, also likes pink and wants to be a princess others. All good stuff, try not to squish any of it.

Our 4 year old ds is just like this - his favourite colour is pink and he loves putting my pinky lip balm on, plus any creams and potions - and nail varnish (toes only!)! We're in negotiations at the moment on a hat I'm knitting him and I've bartered him down to it being red, but having pink in the bobble! He's got pink socks, pink vests and pyjamas, plus a pink duvet set.

For his 3rd birthday he had a Barbie birthday cake with Barbie cups, plates etc. and pink balloons everywhere!!

But he also loves fighting games, anything with guns, lasers, soldiers, and other boy-type things like playing with trucks, cars, planes etc.

I love that he loves pink - it won't last forever and he'll get more self conscious and that'll be that.

DS (2 1/2) is exactly the same. He's got a big sister and his best friend is a girl so when they have on hats and beads and handbags he wants hats and beads and handbags too. His favourite colour is pink and also loves playing with dolls & buggies. As far as I have seen there isn't a 2-3 year old who DOESN'T like playing with dolls and buggies. Sometimes I try to convince him to wear a builder or a knight outfit instead but he still puts on the beads and high heeled shoes along with the yellow vest and hardhat!

At this age they are starting to recognise the differences between boys and girls but can't for the life of them understand why girls can do certain things and boys can't - and vice versa. And rightly so. Like colditz said - you wouldn't stop a girl from playing football or playing with a train set?

It is a sign of an active imagination and not of any "tendencies". I would like to say of course (as no one else on this thread has said it yet) that if he DID turn out to be gay it wouldn't make the slightest difference to me whatsoever. I just don't think it would have anything to do with his wearing his sister's beads at the age of 2.

My dn loved wearing his mums necklaces. My db always wanted me to get out my Sindy furniture and dolls so he could play with them and I always wanted to play with his meccano.

I think it is part of a childs development - my dd (15 months) has cars and loves 'brumming'.

If he's going to be gay then stopping him carrying a handbag isn't going to prevent it, is it?
At 3 a child's idea of gender is very fluid - it is perfectly normal to think that you can grow up to be a girl (or as my ds thinks, that grownups become children again). He is just experimenting with who he is, who people are the differences between them.

6yo ds1 loves wearing girls clothes. he spent the whole day in a dress and tights the other day, but as soon as he heard dp was in his way back from work he got changed. have got no idea why, but he was obviously embarrassed probably school friends telling him its silly, dp would never tease him about it

my brother always used to play with my barbies aswell, but he said they werent dolls when he was playing with them, they were 'action figures'

your dh/dp is doing more damage by getting upset than your ds is by playing with a bit of makeup. My ds pretends to be a piano teacher - because I am - not because he seriously wants to be one.

I don't for a moment think this is anything more than normal 3 year old dressing up and "hero worship" of his mum.

Oh I get so annoyed with men on this one.
It is really an indication of how they feel about feminine stuff- i.e. something that you should be ashamed of. What exactly is wrong with encouraging more feminine behaviour?

ALL boys of this age do this. I spent Sunday afternoon with a friend whose 3 year old son insisted on dressing in his pink fairy outfit and jumping around shouting 'I'm a fairy'. He looked pretty cute to me as did his 5 year old sister who was doing the same thing. I rarely say this as I think is unhelpful but on this issue I really wish some men would grow up.

I can only say thank god for dh who when I said 'oh a boy, I won't be able to buy nice clothes' when my ds was born, said just dress him as a girl if it satisfies some urge in you and he'll never know the difference.

I didn't because I'm subject to more stereotypes than I'd like to be but dh really meant it. He very sensibly does not think that wearing women's clothes or liking women's things makes you gay. It is a ridiculous argument and not worth discussing further.

He will almost certainly grow out of it - just let him do it - peer pressure will stop him soon enough.

Anna

The funniest thing in a book of celebrity childhood reminiscences I once read, was the actor Bob Hoskins (well known geezer) remembering how as a toddler he had been in floods of tears at a children's party because he thought he was going to be allowed to wear a frilly pink party dress like his sister. Eventually the people having the party found a spare party dress for him to wear and harmony was restored....

Ah bless him, let him be, he'll grow out of it.
Children are confused by all this girl/boy type thing when they are tiny.

This morning my 4 year old DD said to her dad "when you are an old lady daddy I will teach to you to swim"

Thank you all for your replies to my dilemma. I sat my husband down and let him read all the responses and at the end he agreed that its his issue and DS can get on with his dressing up as long as he wants..big weight lifted off my shoulders so thank you all once again.

the only person with a difficulty here is your husband - your son is behaving completely normally as all these good posters have said!

Don't let your husband worry about it at all and certainly don't stop your son doing what he wants - he needs to express himself and not to have adults impose gender issues on him that he cannot understand.

It's sooo normal for him to do what he's doing, please don't worry.

My ds (4) loves putting my make up on. wearing my shoes etc.Got a dolls house for xmas which he puts all his animals in,(wanted pink princess castle) we compremised.walks around saying "I'm a lady don't you know!". But he couldn't be anymore boy like at other times.Ithink it is a phase you have to let them go through.Being gay doesn't even come into it,and if he was i'd love him just as much.

Glad your dh has finally seen sense on this one!

One of my ds's loves to dress in his big sister's clothes at any opportunity he can - and he is now 12. We have pictures of him from toddler age up to the present dressed in high heeled boots, skirts and pretty tops. Oh and one of him in my pink bikini on holiday!

We laugh with him at these and just don't make an issue of it at all. I think in very young boys it's very normal, although I'm not too sure about it when they are almost teenagers tbh - but I'm not about to get my knickers in a twist over it!

Just make sure you take lots of photos for blackmail purposes when he is older.

My ds1 loves dressing up and wearing my make up and he has a dolly. He love it